Mobilicity launched their Ottawa network yesterday, capping off a series of openings in Vancouver and Edmonton. These are the first markets that Mobilicity has hit after an extended stay in Toronto. Calgary is the next one on the list, and should be launched next year.
Yesterday, we saw some of the new handsets that Mobilicity will be offering, like the Motorola Spice for $199, the Xperia X10 for $499, and the LG Wink for $99. That’s on top of some of their solid current offerings, like the Nexus One and the BlackBerry Bold 9700. Now that they’ve launched these devices to the same markets as Wind and offering comparable plans, I’m curious to see how many folks will mix and match handsets and carriers. After all, both work on the AWS bands and neither tie down their customers with contracts. Sure, folks have been able to do that with the Big Three, but they’d have to sacrifice 3G if porting Wind or Mobilicity phones to Bell, Rogers or Telus (or vice versa).
The biggest worry for Mobilicity at this point is the reliability of their networks. They’re still building things out, and though it’s great that they’re available in three new major Canadian markets, there are bound to be some gaps to fill and bugs to squash. Despite that, I was really impressed how far into Quebec Mobilicity managed to spread. I was under the impression that Videotron had a lock-down on the AWS bands the second you crossed the Quebec border, but it was explained to me that there’s so many people who move between Ontario and Quebec in Ottawa that it would have been unreasonable to draw a hard line in the ground.
In the middle of an otherwise standard run-down of coverage, devices, and plans, Mobilicity marched in these dancers to do a little number for us. They’re calling these guys the “Magenta Militia“, and to be honest, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when they came in… Maybe some music would have helped, I don’t know. I’ll leave it to you to decide.